Inside story of the summer that rebuilt Manchester United: How a players’ charter, F1 data guru, Ruben Amorim’s rulebook, training ground revamp and supercharged transfer operation turned them from ‘toxic’ to a rising force

Manchester United will open the doors to a new-look Carrington on Friday morning, the latest step in a revolution under Sir Jim Ratcliffe that has brought transformation and more than enough turbulence.

The £50million upgrade of the complex will not only give United a world-class training facility but a more integrated club as staff move across from Old Trafford to work under the same roof with other departments for the first time.

It’s fair to say that change has not always been positive since Ratcliffe bought into United; it led to the club’s worst season in more than half a century, low morale among a workforce decimated by redundancies and unrest among fans over his ticketing policies.

Yet after a year of drama and disappointment at the club, there are signs that Ratcliffe and the people he has trusted to run United are getting it right.

When a defeated and somewhat divided United drifted away from Bilbao after the Europa League final against Tottenham in May, you wondered just how Ruben Amorim and his employers could turn this ship around. Fast forwards less than three months and there is a completely different mood.

Ahead of Saturday’s final warm-up game against Fiorentina at Old Trafford, United are unbeaten in pre-season having won the Premier League Summer Series in the US against West Ham, Bournemouth and Everton. ‘A hell of a team,’ Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola called them, and there are clear signs of progress.

There are no guarantees of success, of course. Erik ten Hag had an unbeaten first pre-season in 2022 before the wheels fell off in the first two games against Brighton and Brentford. But with a clear leadership structure and strategy in place led by CEO Omar Berrada, newly promoted director of football Jason Wilcox and performance director Sam Erith, the football operation is far more efficient.

All three worked together at Manchester City and played their part in the success story across Manchester.

At the heart of it is a ‘football first’ policy aimed at creating a world-class environment for the team to succeed, of which the new Carrington headquarters will be a shining example with its attention to every detail for the players including a barbers.

That much was clear from the trip to the US. While Niagara Falls was being lit up in the club’s colours and Lord Coe was pitching to potential investors in the new £2billion stadium at a conference in New York, Amorim and his squad were left to focus on football without too much of the commercial baggage that has frustrated a succession of United managers on tour. One example was the players being limited to two sponsor appearances rather than the usual three.

At last it feels as though Manchester United and Ineos are no longer working as separate entities and everyone knows their job.

Brailsford, so prominent in the early months and influential in the Carrington upgrade, has been redeployed in Ratcliffe’s organisation but is still on the United board and retains some oversight. The feeling is that he delivered on his remit and the end of last season was the right time for him to hand over.

Berrada, Wilcox, head of recruitment Christopher Vivell and negotiations chief Matt Hargreaves have been the driving force behind deals to sign Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and, quite likely, Benjamin Sesko this summer for a combined £210m.

When Ineos first arrived, it was reported that they would adopt a ‘no d***heads’ policy made famous by one of their previous enterprises, the All Blacks rugby team, and there has been a focus on getting the right players and the right fit rather than a large number of new signings.

United have prioritised signing players with experience of English football and, in Mbeumo and Cunha, believe they have got two of the best players who were available in the Premier League this summer, at prices within their budget and without having to pay inflated wages.

The club triggered Cunha’s £62.5m release clause at Wolves and got Mbeumo for their ‘walkaway price’ of £71m after weeks of haggling with Brentford, both turning down chances to play Champions League football elsewhere to join United because they want to be part of a revival.

Equally, no tears have been shed over missing out on Viktor Gyokeres and Hugo Ekitike, because they wanted to join Arsenal and Liverpool instead.

There is an expectation among the Old Trafford hierarchy that it will take up to two or three more summer windows to be set for the long-term, and a decision was taken to run with a smaller squad this season with United not playing in Europe for only the second time in 35 years.

Amorim’s first seven months in charge took their toll but sources insist that United never thought their Portuguese coach would walk away. ‘We would have been more worried if he was happy about losing,’ said one.

They also dismiss the suggestion that Mbeumo and Cunha have been signed solely to be the two No 10’s Amorim needs for his 3-4-2-1 formation, arguing that they are versatile players who can operate in any system.

The data on Mbeumo, in particular, indicated that United have signed the closest thing to Mohamed Salah without getting the Liverpool man himself.

That statistical research comes under the control of Mike Sansoni, the new head of data who spent 11 years with the Mercedes Formula One team – another in the Ineos stable – and now sits on the club’s executive leadership team as United try to catch up and eventually overtake their rivals in the field of data and artificial intelligence.

There has been a raft of other changes throughout the club. As well as Amorim and his coaching staff – a tight-knit group that brought success to Sporting Lisbon – new faces are also evident among the backroom team of administrators, physios, nutritionists and masseurs, several of them with a Portuguese or Brazilian background.

These include new first-team operations manager Acacio Valentim and head chef Will Carvalho who now works with the nutritionists as one department, and made a good impression on tour with the variety of his menu and signature rice pudding.

There are shades of the Catalan influence at Manchester City that coincided with Pep Guardiola’s move to the Etihad, where Wilcox and Berrada were previously employed.

The last of Ten Hag’s staff – the Swedish coach Andreas Georgson – left at the end of May, and for the first time since the Ineos takeover it feels as though the old guard are outnumbered by the new order.

Amorim has not been afraid to make sweeping changes either. His decision to leave his ‘bomb squad’ at home when United went on tour was a bold move that risked weakening United’s bargaining position when trying to offload Alejandro Garnacho, Jadon Sancho, Antony and Tyrell Malacia, having already sent Marcus Rashford on loan to Barcelona.

But he felt it was more important to draw a line under the past and send a signal to the rest of the squad that he only wanted players around him who were committed to the cause. Lisandro Martinez and Andre Onana both went on the trip even though they were injured and there was no chance of them playing in the US.

Martinez is on a new six-man leadership team alongside captain Bruno Fernandes, Harry Maguire, Diogo Dalot, Noussair Mazraoui and Tom Heaton, and is aimed at making the players more accountable. ‘It becomes self-policing so the players get it and don’t need to be told,’ said a source.

Ten Hag formed a similar team that included Luke Shaw and Casemiro, but it never really worked and Shaw spoke in Chicago last week about the ‘toxic’ environment that has existed at United in recent years.

Amorim wants a tighter group and it was clear from the way his squad played and behaved in the US that he is starting to build some camaraderie.

The 40-year-old has been trying to foster more unity and cut out any cliques since he took over in November, immediately squeezing a larger dinner table into the team hotel before his first game at Ipswich so the players could eat together while staff sat at a different table.

It was replicated at Old Trafford, Carrington and wherever United stayed on trips and tours but, even so, it was noticeable at first that the Portuguese-speaking players sat at one end of the table and their team-mates at the other, with the younger members of the squad in the middle. The situation is more integrated now, according to sources.

On their two nights out on tour in Chicago, the squad chose to eat together at Tao, an Asian restaurant, and Doc B’s American eatery. On both occasions alcohol was allowed but with a curfew of 11pm and then 12 midnight as United had training sessions the following morning.

Strangely for the stricter Ten Hag, he gave his players a free night on tour in LA last summer with the only proviso being that they were back the next day.

Amorim also wants to treat them like adults with broader parameters. Phones are allowed at the dinner table now, but the players know not to push the boundaries by being on them for too long.

‘We have new rules and the rules are not to treat the players as babies,’ Amorim said on tour. ‘I know that they are not kids, and I don’t treat the players like kids. They have sons. I treat them as men, but they have rules now. I think these small rules can help a group to be strong.’

The United squad had another club-organised event at London House in Chicago (no alcohol permitted on this occasion) and spent more of their time off together whereas previously they would have been split.

The team initiation ceremonies were held across two nights at United’s hotels, the Waldorf Astoria in Chicago and W in Atlanta, such was the large number of new staff and young players on tour for the first time in addition to the three new signings.

Cunha, a bundle of energy among his new team-mates, stood out with a Brazilian song. Mbeumo was typically more reserved as he sang in French, and new left back Diego Leon’s contribution also went down well.

It would be understandable that after two weeks cooped up together in Chicago, New Jersey and Atlanta, the United players wanted to have some time apart when they landed back in Manchester at 11am on Monday morning, but they all got together again to watch Drake perform at the Co-op Arena that night.

Doing more together as a team is one of the proposals on an unofficial players’ charter drawn up by their leadership team. Putting more time aside to sign autographs and pose for pictures with fans is another, and there is a suggestion that the players have proposed an incentive scheme for other members of staff to help lift morale outside the first-team bubble too.

They have also changed the team’s playlist so everyone has a say in what they listen to. In the past, Diogo Dalot has been the designated DJ, and bought a huge speaker in club colours that he wheels into Old Trafford or Carrington.

The Portugal defender is a fan for reggaeton and Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny’s hit DtMF has become the de facto team anthem. Tom Heaton took over when Dalot was injured towards the end of last season, but now every player can nominate one song to go on the list.

These are small details, as was the decision to invite Kurt, United’s bus driver on tour, to watch the squad train by way of thanks, and Fernandes taking time out on tour to congratulate MUTV cameramen Noel Grice and Keith Rheade on 25 years’ service.

Amorim wants them to be better human beings as well as better players, to have pride in the badge and appreciate the privilege of representing Manchester United.

Having spent much of last season yearning for more time with them on the training pitch, he got his chance on tour and even put on a session straight after the games against West Ham in New Jersey and Everton in Atlanta for anyone who had played fewer minutes.

The 40-year-old has been literally walking them through their paces to engrain his ideas so they become second nature. ‘I think we will reach a point hopefully where we can almost play with our eyes closed,’ said Dalot.

Information was kept brief and concise, in contrast to Ten Hag who was prone to longer meetings and analysis. There were none of the gruelling double sessions favoured by the Dutchman, and running was combined with shooting drills to make it more interesting. Training ended with games with an element of jeopardy whereby the losers had to bring in all the gear.

There was a ‘fresh vibe’ according to insiders and it paid dividends in the US with United looking sharp and more cohesive.

These are early days, of course. This is by no means the first cultural reset at the club, and it usually ends up in the same frustrating place. Questions over Amorim will soon resurface if the season starts badly, and you could hardly ask for a tougher opener than Arsenal next weekend at Old Trafford.

There is realism to go with optimism, as one insider explained this week. ‘We’re in a really good place, but there has been a huge amount of change and it’s not a straight road. No one here thinks we’ve cracked it yet.’